CEO pay is up!

The chief executives of America’s biggest companies are on track for another banner year of compensation, fueled by a soaring stock market and an improving economy….Total pay—including salary, cash incentives, equity, perquisites and more—rose at least 9.9% for half the executives, the fastest annual growth since 2014, while about a quarter of the executives received raises of 25% or more. Most of the gains came from stock awards, as firms largely held the line on cash compensation and stock options.

So the top half of CEOs saw their pay go up more than 10 percent. I don’t know exactly how the rest of us did on that scale, but people with bachelors degrees are a rough proxy for the top half of the general population. According to the BLS, their pay went up 1.6 percent last year. So I guess the CEOs did pretty well. It’s no wonder they were rewarded with a nice tax cut from the Republican Party.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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